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Windows Server R2 for Small Business

Most of SME start-up do not prefer a server to begin with.
A SME owner quoted ” Simpler the better for me to concentrate on expansion than be caught in maintenance of servers. I am not quite an expert to keep the policy updates and check for security issues within the server” .This is true for the older generation servers but R2 has a focus for small business, it simplifies admin tasks and selectively let you use technologies that are very important for virtual teams and SME.

Windows server 2008 R2 is licensed for 15 users, this the main attraction as earlier versions of Window servers did not have such a suitable license structure for SME.

The primary concerns ( to the best of my knowledge) of SME using a server are as follows.

SME have limited IT resource and depend on trusted technology. I have known SME owners who do not like to adapt to new technology simply because they did not think it was worth their time understanding new technology to manage SME.

Low cost is the primary concern for SME as well.

Protecting data is very important for any business but it might be fatal for an SME

Finding business data easily and making it available globally could increase efficiency.

R2 is good suit when considering the above challenges .. it is a good business value, simplicty to buy, state of art technology capabilty.

R2 for SME comes in two flavors. Foundation and Standard
Windows server foundation suitable to SME and upgradable to standard in future.
If you are thinking about virtualization I would suggest you to buy “Standard” – this is the major differene between foundation and standard.

I will be covering more aspects of R2 and how to utilize its power in your SME in forthcoming posts.

Do keep coming back for more and kindly leave your feedback and comments. I suggest that you subscribe to my feeds as well.

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3 thoughts on “Windows Server R2 for Small Business”

Microsoft literature is so convoluted that i am totally confused. Native failover clustering is only available in SBS 2008 R2 Enterprise. Yet Hyper-V is available to both standard and enterprise edition. The hyper-v documentation makes no reference for the need for enterprise edition to support failover clustering.We want to use Hyper-V and have a 2-node failover cluster.Can we or can we not have a 2-node failover cluster using Hyper-V and windows server 2008 R2 Standard?

Pretty basic question here but the microsoft literature is so convoluted that i am totally confused.Native failover clustering is only available in SBS 2008 R2 Enterprise. Yet Hyper-V is available to both standard and enterprise edition. The hyper-v documentation makes no reference for the need for enterprise edition to support failover clustering.We want to use Hyper-V and have a 2-node failover cluster.Can we or can we not have a 2-node failover cluster using Hyper-V and windows server 2008 R2 Standard?